Cemeteries

Posted 04.19.06 at 1:12 PM

Kudos to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who have been working, as a church project, in Mel Haven Cemetery, adjacent to Sulphur Springs City Cemetery, which dates back to the late 1880s. Many slaves were buried in this cemetery, according to June Tuck, a prominent Hopkins County cemetery researcher.

Many graves are unmarked, or “marked” but have no informative tombstones. Tuck believes some of the graves date as far back as the 1850s. The current generation does not care for the old cemetery, and Mel Haven has no perpetual funds for groundskeeping. What a wonderful project for these 38 church members.

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Steamboat

Posted 04.17.06 at 1:16 PM

I’ve followed the steamboat excavation near Fort Towson with interest for several years. On March 31, 2006, I found an interesting article and update in the Dallas Morning News. Oklahoma historians and Texas A&M researchers are trying to bring up what they can of the 140-ft. long Heroine, which sank in the Red River in 1838. It will be the oldest steamboat ever recovered in this country. The article contains an excellent diagram of the ship, including a list of her cargo.

It was bound for Fort Towson with a year’s supplies, but like many a victim of the Red River, it struck a submerged log and sank near its destination According to the article, “A Race Against Time and the Red,” by Arnold Hamilton, five years later a flood rerouted the channel, leaving the big boat buried in someone’s pasture. In 1990, another flood rerouted the channel and exposed part of the wreckage,  which was spotted by a local landowner. Imagine going about your daily chores and making such a discovery.

Recovered wreckage is on display in the Oklahoma History Center near Oklahoma City, but plans are underway to create a 2000-sq. ft. visitors center and museum near the River and Fort Towson to celebrate Oklahoma’s 2007 centennial.

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What’s in a Name?

Posted 04.11.06 at 9:08 AM

What’s in a name? Do you ever wonder? In the Texas National Dispatch of Feb. 1984, Gordon A. Hyatt printed a “menu” of Texas Post Office names:

For breakfast, we might have Melon (Frio Co.) 1909-DPO (meaning dead or closed), Oatmeal (Burnet) 1853-DPO, Cream (Parker) 1879-80; Pancake (Coryell) 1884-1908, Bacon (Panola) 1903-05, Ham (Henderson) 1901-12, Blackberry Plains (Fannin) 1871-73, Plum (Fayette) 1880 and still operating in 1984, and to wash it all down, Coffeeville (Upshur) 1852-1915.

For lunch, among other items on the menu, we could call on Bean Creek (Hunt) 1853-55, and we could have such specialties as Gourdneck (Rusk) 1880-81 and Crawfish (Floyd) 1892-93. (Notice that these three had “short runs” as menu items.)

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